New website lists historic buildings for development

Turismo de Portugal has launched a website offering interesting buildings for tourist development.

The invest.turismodeportugal.pt platform aims to showcase investment opportunities for unused buildings that have heritage and tourism potential.

The aim is to promote contact between investors and the property owners, who want to sell to those interested in developing a tourism business as long as they preserve the essential features of the building.

The new website includes ​​statistical data, training and financial opportunities and is in Portuguese and English.

According to the Secretary of State for Tourism, this website, "is an excellent mechanism that has responded to the challenge to make known numerous investment opportunities in tourism throughout the country, which, for lack of information, do not often reach interested investors. It will be a great tool to promote the spread of tourism to the whole territory and to the cohesion of the country."

One of the buildings on the list is the old casino in Armação de Pêra where hope for its useful future was rekindled in 2015 by Silves mayor, Rosa Palma, who stated that,

"The council wants to look at the redevelopment of Armação de Pêra’s old casino because it is an emblematic building of high historical and architectural value, a reference point in the urban environment, as well as an integral part of the identity and collective memory of Armação de Pêra’s people and the Algarve itself."

The council asked locals their opinions on what to do with the classic building’s but anyway intended to implement something called, "a sustainable funding model."

This involved a Silves Council plan to repair and restore the building to create a tourist office, a multipurpose room with a stage and spaces for exhibitions, lectures, receptions, meetings, etc, a restaurant and an area for reading, information technology, education and culture. (HERE)

As locals and many tourists are aware, nothing happened, so the casino building now is listed on Turismo de Portugal’s investment site, with the briefest of descriptions:

“This is a property with rehabilitation needs in view of its state of conservation. Part of its outdoor space includes a children’s playground.”

A once proud building, listed for development, is the Seiça Monastery in the Beira Litoral region, which carries a rather more fruitful description:

“The Monastery was donated by D. Sancho I to the Cistercian Order (Monastery of Alcobaça), in the XII century. However, the built heritage only bears witness to the sixteenth century and beyond.

“Between the last years of the XVI century and the beginning of XVII century, the conventual building was completely rebuilt, according to a project of the authorship of Mateus Rodrigues, beginning to function as a center of philosophical studies of the Order, due to its proximity to the College of Santa Cruz de Coimbra.

“Although the monastery is currently in advanced ruin, the church building stands out, being considered the “most interesting piece” of the whole. The interior was greatly altered with the installation of a rice husking factory in the 19th century."

Comments

Ed: Didn't we hear of this scheme a couple of months back with the listing of Salazar era prisons and 'namby pambies' saying that these should not be listed as the memories are still too painful for the relatives of those locked up or killed in them. Or just missing - seen going in but never seen again, alive or dead. Far too painful for the Portuguese establishment as it educates foreigners in the horrors of that time that still blight so many lives today. But good to note that the new Spanish Socialist Government intends allowing archaeologists to exhume mass graves from their period of Troubles. Allowing the elderly relatives some closure before joining their long dead kinfolk - not possible here in Portugal.

You refer to Peniche Prison/Fortress where many were tortured during the Salazar years and some escaped. It was on the Revive list but the Commies objected - seeing as the former inmates were classed as Commies, and is to become the museum of 'resistance and freedom' rather than some posh hotel. https://www.algarvedailynews.com/news/14128-peniche-prison-to-become-national-museum-of-resistance-and-freedom

Ed: Didn't we hear of this scheme a couple of months back with the listing of Salazar era prisons and 'namby pambies' saying that these should not be listed as the memories are still too painful for the relatives of those locked up or killed in them. Or just missing - seen going in but never seen again, alive or dead. Far too painful for the Portuguese establishment as it educates foreigners in the horrors of that time that still blight so many lives today. But good to note that the new Spanish Socialist Government intends allowing archaeologists to exhume mass graves from their period of Troubles. Allowing the elderly relatives some closure before joining their long dead kinfolk - not possible here in Portugal.